Faced with the devastating news that his star player, and the heart and soul of the team, Toronto Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo reportedly turned down Michael Beasley in the Chris Bosh/Miami Heat sign-and-trade (existing contract included) opting to complete the deal with the over $13 million trade exception instead. Adding fuel to this fire of a topic is that the Heat were supposedly willing to throw in Beasely essentially for free.

Colangelo was given the choice between paying Beasley $11 million over two years (with a qualifying offer of $8.1 million in 2012-13) or accepting the trade exception in the deal and find himself a replacement at the Power Forward position. Colangelo opted for the latter of the two and signed Amir Johnson for $34 million over five years. Colangelo was placing a lot of trust and responsibility on the shoulders of the unproven Johnson. Flashes of quality play, not great were exhibited throughout last season but nothing substantial enough to warrant the kind of deal he was rewarded with.

Michael Beasley was essentially untouchable in college playing at Kansas State. His 26.2 pts/game and 14.4 rebounds/game were enough to earn hi All-American honours in the 2007-2008 season. His play earned him the 2nd overall pick in the 2008 NBA Draft by the Miami Heat. His first couple of years in the NBA was not as easy as expected and what he would have hoped for. Playing in the shadows of Dwayne Wade and living with the temptation that is South Beach had a big part of his tough times.

It appears as though Beasley has turned it around and is having a breakout season with his new Team, the Minnesota Timberwolves. Beasley was traded their in the off-season as a part of the Heat’s house cleaning exercise that allowed them to re-sign Wade and sign Bosh and Lebron. After studying and learning new Timberwolves Coach Kurt Rambis’ “Triangle Offense” and averaging 25 points or more in six consecutive games including a career high 42 points against the Sacramento Kings it appears as though Bryan Colangelo missed the “One that got away”.

For now, the Toronto Raptors are trying to find their identity through hard work, energy and determination. We at TheBowse are sure that Raptors fans would much rather see Michael Beasley put up 42 points wearing their hometown uniform instead of that Trade Exception!

10 Comments

BCol made the right call, there is alot of uncertainly with the NBA CBA comming up and even though Beasly(a guy who is a small big and a big small) is putting up solid nums he was not desirable since the cap space and trade exptetion(which could be used to land a more established player) was a chip BCOl wanted. If you look at the Pedja deal there is a clear pattern here BCol wants to save dough and get younger. Adding Beasly at the time was risky sure his game has yet to develop but a record of poor conduct has already got him in the doghouse many times in MIA. It is always good after the fact to look at this move as bad since Beasly has been a solid contributer(all be it not to any kind of wins) for Minny.

I think the Raps need to gut this team if anything drafting Jrue Holiday or BJenn made more sense and could have been deemed a bigger failure since the raps lacked a surefire young pg type at the time. I am less a fan of Darozen than i am the Bosh deal.